Update on habits (III)

Leo Babauta from Zen Habits always emphasizes that in order to incorporate new habits, it's very, very important to do it one habit at a time. As the typical "bite- more-than-you-can-chew" type, I've been ignoring his advice so far and my habit-building results have not been as successful as I'd like. I've therefore decided to follow his advice, if only in a relative way.

My habit list has not changed much. However, I intend to give one single habit preeminence. That means that if I have to miss any other habits in order to build that one, I will. For example, my current most important habit is getting to bed earlier. If I have to miss on setting my clothes for next day or writing my MIT's, then so be it. I have to be in bed before a certain time.

We'll see how this goes in the following weeks. On the plus side, exercise has almost become a real habit for me. That's surely a plus.

Update on habits (II)

A bit of improvement on the habit front. Exercise and next-day preparation are still strong, with few if any omissions. Picking my MITs is also coming along nicely, which leaves the other two usual suspects...

No snacks or sweets on weekdays is not really happening. I need to reframe this habit or start smaller in some way. I'm not gaining weight and I am keeping within the bounds of my diet, but I feel I could bring it up a notch by keeping it extra clean during weekdays. Any ideas?

Getting to bed before midnight proved impossible, so I decided to reframe this habit. I'll start with "Being in bed by 12:30" this week and drop five minutes per week. It's incremental, tiny, and I think it might just work...

Update on habits (I)

I haven't advanced a great deal on the issue of habits since my last post on the subject. My score at Joe's Goals keeps hovering in the 2-3 range. The most difficult goals are still "Go to bed before midnight" and "No sweets or snacks on weekdays".

I'm starting to think that both these goals could use some redefining. The main issue that keeps me up at night is websurfing or chatting, so I will be reframing the goal as "Turn off PC before midnight". It's a less ambitious goal which could eventually lead to getting to bed before midnight. As for snacks and sweets, my weak spot is right before going to sleep. I think having some healthier alternatives available (nuts, dry fruit, etc.) could help as a substitute.

I haven't read a lot on habits either, but I plan on doing so today. Let's hope the next update is a bit more uplifting...

Making the most of what you've got

I sometimes feel I get drawn into the consumerism trap. I am a fitness aficionado and there always seems to be a new book, DVD or product which can help me attain new levels of strength, conditioning or whatnot. I've been mulling over this for a long time, trying to get my buyer impulses into check. It's nothing serious (I would not consider myself a compulsive buyer) but it makes me uncomfortable to feel so compelled to buy something.

After some consideration, I realized this applies to other areas of my life. Besides my engineering studies at college, I've always had a lot of different interests. Of course, making time for them all is quite hard and one of the main issues I deal with in my quest for balance. I tend to buy lots and lots of books and I sometimes get the feeling that this book will be defining in me studying some philosophy/linguistics/political theory/etc. Same thing goes for the engineering books I buy for college. In my mind, buying things seems to be a sort of crutch for actually spending the time and effort required to get results, or a way to ignore the fact that I have limited time.

A new motto I've been bouncing in my head lately is this post's title: "make the most of what you've got". That is, get every drop out of what I currently own (books, DVDs, equipment of all sorts) before thinking of buying something new. For example, have I tried every routine in my fitness books? Have I exhausted my extensive personal library when looking for a particular subject? Have I watched every DVD I own? This could be tied to the notion of frugality, but perhaps that'ssomething better left for another post.

All is all, it's a nice mantra and it has helped me avoid some impulsive purchasing moods. We'll see how I deal with this issue in the following months. In the meanwhile, do tell your story. How do you deal with compulsive buying behaviors?

The first step: habits and routine

There are literally hundreds of books and websites on the issues of productivity, emotional mastery, goal setting, spirituality and whatnot. I think anyone who is getting started with PD is bound to feel a bit lost and overwhelmed at first. It is also common, I believe, to have an initial "dabbler" period in which you go from one book/website to another, not giving each technique or idea enough time and effort to show results. This can be quite frustrating. I feel I am just now starting to overcome this initial phase and deciding on which PD techniques and ideas I want to bring into my life at this moment.

Habits seem to be the best place to start. They are a time-tested technique whose usefulness has been praised by famous individuals since time immemorial. There is quite a bit of material in my favorite PD websites on the issue of building and maintaining habits, and I’ve just found a really neat piece of online software (Joe’s Goals) in order to track my progress.

Wikipedia defines habits as "routines of behavior that are repeated regularly, tend to occur subconsciously, without directly thinking consciously about them". This is basically my objective: to make this things so much a part of my routine as breakfast or my morning shower. I cannot remember the last time I forgot to do any of those two (and I don’t think I have). They are long-ingrained habits.

I will be using Joe’s Goals to track myself daily for the following habits:

1) Bodyweight exercise & mobility: I’ve been following a bodyweight exercise plan taken from Scott Sonnon's Flowfit and Forward Pressure programs. While my adherence is quite good, I’ve missed a few days lately, especially since I moved my exercise time to the mornings, which makes it a bit harder. Same goes for my twice-a-day mobility plan.

2) Go to bed before midnight: Closely tied to the prior habit. It’s hard to get up at 6:30 AM and exercise when you went to bed at 1 AM. Plus, these late-night stretches are basically just wasting time surfing the web. Having 6-7 hours of sleep consistently makes a difference in my energy levels for the whole week.

3) Get ready for the next day: This basically means setting my clothes, backpack and lunch for the next day before I go to bed. Whenever I try to do these in the morning I end up forgetting something or arriving late. Not packing my lunch usually means I end up eating outside my diet.

4) Select my MITs for the following day: Selecting your Most Important Tasks (MITs) is an idea I got from this post on Zen Habits. It has worked the few times I’ve used it, so I would like to make this a habit. I'm only using it for workdays so far.

5) No sweets or snacks on weekdays: I am more or less good at keeping within the bounds of my eating style (a pseudo-paleo diet), but I sometimes get derailed with snacks or sweets. Cutting them out from Monday to Friday seems like a good starting point.

As you can see, I have already made some progress with some of these, but they are not true habits yet in that they are not automatic parts of my routine.

I will also be reading (or re-reading in some cases) a number of articles on the subject of habits. The following is a short list:

30 days to success

How to maintain not-quite-daily habits

Goals into habits

Five things you need to know about effective habit change

Everyday Systems Podcast: Episode 10

Everyday Systems Podcast: Episode 9

I guess that’s all for the moment folks. We’ll see how this habit thing works these following weeks. In the meanwhile, please do post your own experiences regarding habit-building.

Entering the Praxeum

I started dabling in PD (Personal Development) about about a year ago, when I found Steve Pavlina´s self-discipline articles. While I was initially wary of so called "self-help" material, I came to realize that I had several issues bothering me in my life which could benefit from other people´s insights. I quickly saw I would have to separate the wheat from the chaff, but there was some interesting material out there and I decided to give it a try and get over my prejudice.

After reading quite a few of Steve Pavlina´s articles, I dabbled in a NLP book, which gave me some interesting tools. I also started visiting a lot of PD and "life hacking" websites, such as Zen Habits, Raptitude and others (you can see the link bar to the right for the whole list).

While I´ve certainly improved several areas of my life, I think I still need to get a lot of techniques and ideas into action. I thought using a blog would be an effective way to get other people´s impressions and advice. Also, it will double as a personal accountability system of sorts. Many people insist on the usefulness of having a journal; in a way, this blog will double as a public, more sparse journal.

I´m still a bit shy about my interest in PD, so I thought I´d frame this as a sort of game, using imagery which motivates me. As I´ve been paying little attention to my geek side lately, I decided to go back to basics and turn to one of my favourite sagas: Star Wars. I will be framing this whole experiment as a Jedi padawan (that's Star-Wars speak for "apprentice")*. This idea seems both motivating and funny, so I care little if it`s a bit juvenile. The issues I´ve been struggling with lately have to do with self- discipline, fear, learning and self-knowledge, so the idea of picturing myself as a padawan in training looks accurate enough.

My following post (coming out today or tomorrow) will have to do with the first tool I would like to master: habit forming. If you find the premise of this blog interesting, please do visit every once in a while and drop me a comment. I'm really looking forward to getting other PD-minded people to help me on the way.

May the Force be with you! ;)

* just to make things clear, I do not beleive I can harness the Force, nor do I have a lightsaber (sadly); my delusions are a bit more complex...